The Development of Personality: Seminars in Psychological Astrology (Seminars in Psychological Astrology ; V. 1) by Greene Liz & Sasportas Howard

Author:Greene, Liz & Sasportas, Howard [Greene, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781609253899
Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser
Published: 1987-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Audience: But if Mary is our emblem for the highest form of the feminine, then it is very difficult for a woman to value the positive side of her sexuality. It always gets linked with the siren.

Liz: It does if a woman is identified with collective values. I have found that women who get most upset about this collective lopsidedness are often the ones who are unconsciously the most collective. It is where we are least individual that we are most prone to such splits. I would say that we do not pay much attention to Mary any more. But a generation or two ago, this figure was more powerful on a collective level, and it still is for the devout Catholic. It is an issue if you have an animus with a very collective voice, which can then be projected outside as the voice of society. Neumann's axes are drawn for the purpose of elaborating what happens when the conscious ego tries to approach the archetypal realm. It has a terrible time seeing double. To be spiritual and sexual at the same time is a big mouthful for the ego to swallow, and yet on the archetypal level there is no conflict. And it is completely indigestible if the ego is entrenched in a set of collective values which declare that the twain shall never meet. But if one can become a little more aware of both sides in oneself, with some genuinely individual feelings about what is right and comfortable for oneself, then I think there is much less guilt and repression, and less identification with these collective problems. One can actually enjoy one's contradictions. Then of course one has also broken the spell of the parental marriage, where one lopsided end of that axis must always be paired with a particular kind of spouse. Mary always manages to get herself paired with a father-god who demands perfection yet who behaves in a thoroughly unreasonable and destructive fashion. Often he is thoroughly carnal as well, and forces her to submit to the excesses of his “lower nature.” The siren always manages to get herself paired with one of those higher-minded paternal types who is so preoccupied with the welfare of humanity that he has no time for her charms. I am drawing rather sardonic portraits, but I think they are true as far as they go

Ambivalence is a characteristic of all archetypal figures, and it is this ambivalence which consciousness finds so difficult to contain. That is why Neumann winds up drawing such neat axes. It is also perhaps why the parental marriage, and the marriage of the World Parents, inevitably appears to us as a collision of opposites where two people have polarised over an issue which secretly belongs to both of them. The maternal axis which I mentioned before is a good example. The archetypal mother contains both a creative and a destructive dimension. Mothering includes both. But it is very difficult for a woman to experience herself as both.

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